


Phoenix to Ash

by thuvia ptarth (thuviaptarth)



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-02-27
Updated: 2002-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-03 19:25:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thuviaptarth/pseuds/thuvia%20ptarth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers: Flooded/Carpe Noctem. Required Buffy/Angel shipper post-resurrection missing scene reunion fic #2,013</p>
            </blockquote>





	Phoenix to Ash

_I can't sleep,_ she says, _Angel, I can't sleep_ and he shushes her the only way he knows how.  She tastes exactly like he remembered, exactly, salt and bubblegum-sweet, and then, later, elsewhere, not sweet at all.  He drinks her like wine.  She is so still he feels like his touch will bruise her, or else like she can't feel him at all.  Her hands flex, once; finally she tenses, and sighs, and lets go.  They could do more, he thinks, because this isn't happiness, he's not even sure it's pleasure, but he only pushes himself up and strokes her hair until she falls asleep. He watches her eyelids flutter as she dreams.

Her hair is darker than he remembered: _hasn't dyed it for a while,_ he thinks, and then: _hasn't seen sun for a while_, and his stomach turns. She's (_ghostly_) pale; when he touches her fingers, he can feel the bones. He feels like he has X-Ray vision, like her skull shines through her skin. And her eyes are dark now, so dark, and lost, and he'd follow her into that forest, scry that breadcrumb trail, but the birds have already eaten and the snow has already covered her tracks.

They've switched places somehow. He's surrounded by friends now, family really, and she wears solitude like her own shadow. This isn't what he meant to happen. This is what he left to prevent. He can't, now, remember exactly what his reasoning was. As if Slayers ever had a normal life. But she believed so strongly she could, they all did; he had fallen for it, too.

She was sunshine and crosses, branding his heart and scorching his skin. She was blood and the grace of God and sour thin Communion wine. She killed him once, but she never let him die for her. Sometimes it's hard to forgive her for that.

And now she's night and ash. And she still burns him, all the same.


End file.
